空虚・傷心：神の約束への招待

中学二年の最後の日、教員室で自分の大好きな先生の机の整理をする手伝いをしている最中のことだった。「来年からは福山の学校で教えます」と先生が言われた。

その言葉が信じられず、目の前が真っ暗になった。その先生が結婚されて以来二年、一才の子供を家において、福山から三原の学校へ通勤するのはとてもたいへんだからとのこと。自分の心の太陽のような人と別れることになる悲しさを、生まれてはじめて経験させられた。

Emptiness, Brokenness; God's Invitation to the Covenant

At the end of my second year in junior high school, one day I was helping my favorite teacher while she was putting things away in the teachers’ lounge. She said to me, I will not be coming back to this school next year.

I could not believe what she had just said. It was getting to be very difficult for her to commute from where she has been living after her marriage and having a first child. I understood her reasoning, but it was difficult for me to think about not seeing her anymore at school. It was the first time that I had experienced what it is like to be apart from someone I cared very much.